Cyber War

The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

Baker & TaylorExposes America's burgeoning new cyber warfare capability and its vulnerabilities and documents the first skirmishes that have taken place in cyberspace.

HARPERCOLL

Author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Against All Enemies, former presidential advisor and counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke sounds a timely and chilling warning about America’s vulnerability in a terrifying new international conflict—Cyber War! Every concerned American should read this startling and explosive book that offers an insider’s view of White House ‘Situation Room’ operations and carries the reader to the frontlines of our cyber defense. Cyber War exposes a virulent threat to our nation’s security. This is no X-Files fantasy or conspiracy theory madness—this is real.

Baker & TaylorFrom the #1 best-selling author of Against All Enemies and Your Government Failed You comes a book that exposes America’s burgeoning new cyber warfare capability and its vulnerabilities and documents the first skirmishes that have taken place in cyberspace. 60,000 first printing.

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As a former national security advisor to several US presidents, Richard Clarke warned America about the rise of global terrorism. Now he warns policy makers about a new type of asymmetrical threat: cyber warfare. From foreign espionage, to an aging, vulnerable North American power grid, the varying effects of cyber warfare have already been felt around the world. This book serves as a serious warning; future wars could very well be started with a single keystroke that renders an adversary’s critical infrastructure useless.

Disclaimer of built-in bias: Clarke is really more or less part of the group which supported the offshoring of America [offshoring jobs, technology and investment to China and elsewhere] and now they are warning us about what they did. Whoopie dooo! Yes, Creech AFB had a keylogger malware [that's the base which launched the drones illegally into Iranian airspace] and yes, they were hacked down by the Iranians, so either they or another party was responsible for that hack, and Iran paid them for it. But maybe the American Empire should stop positioning nuke carriers a few miles off the coast of Iran, and stop overthrowing governments bordering Russia, and stop overthrowing democractially-elected presidents of Honduras?

There are many lessons to learn about war conducted on the Internet, or “Cyber War,” which may be coming to your neighborhood soon, and I did learn some things new. However, the author(s), as well-schooled as they are, jump around between detail and oversimplification. . For example, they show great attention to detail in describing the journey of a single information packet, but the off-handed treatment of very complex subjects such as the development of modern computers as no more than a few steps away from coding the number five in binary. They also speculate a lot, for example, and implying that if cyberwar broke out, then the worst-case scenario is the most likely scenario. And perhaps more annoying, they tend to talk down to their readers, who, for the most part, are likely to be rather knowledgeable in these subjects.